1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to patient care diagnosis delivery and, more particularly, to facilitating, in exchange for compensation, the provision of an expert diagnosis opinion of a condition based upon data gathered from a remote monitor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known to remotely monitor human physiological parameters such as heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves and the like in patients. Such monitoring may be accomplished using remote monitoring, thereby allowing patients to have freedom of movement. For example, some systems use cellular telephone technology to allow patients to live at home. The patient visits the hospital if the telemetry device indicates that a visit is warranted.
Hewlett-Packard's ECGStat software for its PalmVue handheld computer system allows emergency room clinicians to capture and transmit full 12-lead ECG data, including waveforms, computerized analysis and patient notes to cardiac specialists outside the hospital. It is a wireless system that uses paging technology to transmit data to a physician's handheld computer.
It is well known to use ECG monitors in conjunction with software to analyze patterns in patients' heartbeats. Typically, monitoring technicians (or monitors) are alerted to the possibility that something is amiss by an alarm. Upon examining a readout of the vital sign in question, the monitor makes a decision about (i) whether the patient requires attention (ii) whether the patient requires a cardiologist's services and if so, (iii) which cardiologist to call. Typically, the technician selects the cardiologist from a list of available specialists. This list is substantially determined by availability, i.e., who is on call at the time. If a cardiologist is required, the technician must communicate to a cardiologist the patient's condition over voice or data lines. The technician may use the Hewlett-Packard ECGStat system described above to communicate with the cardiologist.
Monitoring technicians must watch and wait for alarms to go off in all of the above-described systems. They may miss certain subtle warning signs, and if several alarms go off at once, they can only respond to one at a time. Additionally, they must find out which doctors are on call at the time and then contact the appropriate physician. If the "first choice" physician is not available, the technician must then try to contact another physician. In other words, the technician must operate in a serial manner to procure an expert opinion.
Therefore, it is seen to be desirable to provide a system able to analyze a signal from remote monitoring equipment, e.g., medical monitoring equipment, in such a way as to make a preliminary decision about whether or not an expert, such as a physician, should be contacted and to decide which physician or physicians to contact. Moreover, it is seen to be desirable to provide a system that allows physicians and other experts to accept or decline offers made by the system to render a diagnosis, thereby implementing a "piecework" type of compensation structure within the confines of, e.g., the medical environment. Preferably, such a system minimizes or eliminates the human fallibility involved in noticing alarms and contacting experts in a timely manner.